Barbarian Prince is an old solo-adventure thing that is a bit more than just a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) book. It has a hex map, rules for travelling, random encounters, adding more people to your entourage, a time limit, a goal. And it’s free! It was published in 1981. Check out the “one piece map”. 😍
Let's Read Barbarian Prince - part 1 Map and Layout
Is Barbarian Prince the Supreme Achievement of Western Civilization?
Recently, as I was sitting at home, I decided to pull the PDFs out of one of those deep folders I have on my disk and started playing.
I started in that little town north of the river at 1501 – tried to cross the river but got lost in the swamp of 1401 so managed to cross it but couldn’t enter it; next day I enter the swamp successfully but encounter a troll. Foolishly I try to fight, got beat up but managed to escape with half my endurance gone. I’m lost in this swamp and I have 68 days to go.
I’ll report more when I play some more. 😁
#Solo #RPG
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How does it compare to Ironsworn? There were also some GURPS Conan stuff in this vein and some early Tunnels & Trolls stuff. This is a field I’m not too familiar with. I’ve done Fighting Fantasy and Way of the Tiger. And of course IF games like Spider & Web, Floatpoint, The Gostak etc.
– Sandra 2020-09-11 06:23 UTC
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Sadly, I am totally unfamiliar with the field. I played one or two choose your own adventure books as a kid and I don’t remember their titles.
– Alex Schroeder 2020-09-11 06:59 UTC
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I spent days trying to leave the swamp, moved to the swamp of 1302, then more days trying to find the way out into the forest of 1202, until on day 11 a spectre appeared, turned me into smoke and took me to the astral plane, never to be seen again.
– Alex Schroeder 2020-09-15 20:15 UTC